A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,69

cracked the shell off the tail.

The meat was tender and tasty. A lot like lobster tail. Con’s anxious face broke into a grin as he saw she enjoyed it.

“Good, right?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t help smiling too. “It’s great. But I’m still not sucking the head.”

Con, back to the camera, winked at her. “Alright. Maybe later, huh?”

Her face flushed. Raoul let out a raucous laugh that echoed around the crew.

This was all your idea.

Con chuckled. “Don’t let ’em get cold. That would be a tragedy. Come on everyone, dig in.”

The entire crew fell on the steaming mound of bright red crustaceans that the chef had boiled in two giant vats of water. A variety of dipping sauces left everyone with garlic butter running down their chins and hot peppers stinging their taste buds. The conversation meandered from food to the eerie beauty of the moon-drenched garden, to the house.

“Who owns this old place anyway?” said one of the lighting guys.

Gia sucked her fingers. “A lawyer in town. He rents it out though an agency. They do weddings and parties here, and a TV movie was shot here last year.”

“It’s beautifully maintained,” said Lizzie.

Con wiped his mouth with his napkin. “It’s just plain beautiful”

“The rooms are very well proportioned.” Maisie sucked the “butter” out of a crawdad head without batting an eye. “And the furnishings are really quite extraordinary. Worth an absolute fortune at auction. Genuine American treasures.”

“Maisie interned at Christie’s auction house in high school,” said Lizzie. “The one thing that’s still missing is air conditioning. I don’t know how the rest of you stand it.” Her armpits were soaked, as usual. She’d taken to wearing black so it didn’t show so much.

“Doesn’t bother me,” said Maisie, who apparently didn’t have any sweat glands. “But the A/C units are arriving tomorrow. They were booked up today with a convention, but tomorrow Con will think he’s back in Canada with his Acadian ancestors.” She picked up another crawdad, and looked around the group. Her eyes rested on the running camera. “The Cajuns migrated here from Acadia in Nova Scotia. A proud and fiercely independent people who maintain the cultural traditions of their native France, including an intriguing variant of the language. Did you speak French at home, Con?”

“Nope.”

Lizzie, who’d been inwardly rolling her eyes during Maisie’s pedantry, wondered if Con even was Cajun. Beale didn’t sound particularly French, now she came to think about it.

“It’s such a marvelously simple life, here in the swamps,” continued Maisie, cracking open her crawdad. “Spiritual almost, in the lack of materialism.”

“I think it’s called poverty,” muttered Lizzie. “Con’s childhood doesn’t sound all that spiritual to me.”

“Well, obviously Conroy’s family had its…Its challenges. But just imagine spending the day on the bayou, eating from the hand of Mother Nature, surrounded by the glory of creation…”

Lizzie couldn’t suppress a snort.

“Hold on a minute.” Con held up his hand. Finished his mouthful. “People down here live just like people in New York—we have TVs and cars and telephones.”

“You had electricity in that shack?” Lizzie raised an eyebrow.

“Sure.” Con sounded indignant. Then his mouth turned up at the corner. “Okay, so it wasn’t turned on all the time, but it was there. Like Maisie said, we’ve got spiritual light from within, we don’t need wattage.” He winked.

Lizzie couldn’t help chuckling. How did he always manage to make her smile? He was smiling too. In fact, he looked a bit too cheerful for someone who’d just learned his father was dead and his brother had disappeared off the face of the earth. Lizzie didn’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved or worried.

As if he heard her thoughts, Con turned to Maisie. “Did you find anything out about my brother?”

Maisie wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. “Gia was on the phone all afternoon. We couldn’t find a single trace of him. Social services never heard of him. Is there another name he could have used?”

“I don’t think so.” Con stiffened.

Lizzie swallowed. “Maybe he went to stay with a friend and they left social services out of it?”

“The woman at social services suggested we check records, you know, births, marriages…”

“Deaths.” Con’s mouth flattened into a line.

“There’s no reason to believe he’s dead.” Maisie said it softly. Tilted her head to the side. How sweet and caring of her. Her blue eyes sparkled with moisture, and a simpering smile flickered across her pale pink lips. Lizzie’s skin prickled with irritation.

So Maisie was starting her campaign to seduce Con. They were perfect for each